The present invention relates to a digital still camera, and more particularly, to a digital still camera having, on its back side, an image display device composed of an LCD monitor for an image display.
In the digital still camera, there is generally provided the image display device composed of LCD (liquid crystal display) monitor, so that it is on the back side of the camera main body, in order to recognize extemporaneously an image of a subject (a through image) that is taken through a camera lens, an image that is taken immediately after photographing the subject by a depressing operation of a release switch, and a reproduced image of the image that is photographed and recorded.
In order to design the digital still camera to be thin, it is important how to arrange each of constituent parts provided in the camera main body. Usually, the camera lens is composed of a lens group that is composed of a plurality of lenses, and housed in a cylindrical lens barrel to be housed in the camera main body, further, the image display device is housed on the camera main body so that a surface of the image display device is on the back side of the camera main body, however, they occupy a space so large that an arrangement relation between them becomes a large factor for the determination of the thickness of the camera.
FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 are inside structural drawings showing the arrangement relations between the lens barrel and the image display device on the usual digital still camera. Here, there are shown the conditions of the camera viewed from its bottom side.
In the lens barrel 11, there is formed concave section 11a on the center of the back end side (the lower side in the drawing) of it, and imaging element 12 represented by CCD (charge coupled device) is housed in the concave section 11a. Incidentally, the lens group composed of a plurality of lenses is housed in the lens barrel 11, which is not illustrated.
In the case that image display device 13 is arranged on the left side (right side in the drawing) of the lens barrel 11, viewed from the back side of the camera main body 10 shown in FIG. 3, the lens barrel 11 is arranged coming up to the right side (grip side: left side in the drawing) of center line C of the camera 10 so that it is difficult to grip the camera main body 10. Due to this, in the case that the image display device 13 is arranged on the higher or lower side of the lens barrel 11, not on the left or right side, the camera becomes higher in height, which is different from a style that is long from side to side, or an original style of the camera, and whichever case may be taken, the lens barrel 11 is away from the center line C of the camera main body 10, causing the impossibility of an orthodox camera design. Further, in the case that the lens barrel 11 is away from the center line C of the camera main body 10, when the camera main body 10 is formed to have an outside appearance in which the center of the camera main body 10 is bulged mostly to be a curved surface, the thickness of the camera main body 10 becomes greater, which is a problem.
On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 4, in the case that the image display device 13 is arranged behind the lens barrel 11, it is possible to arrange the lens barrel 11 in the vicinity of the center of the camera main body 10, however the thickness of the camera main body 10 becomes greater than a sum of the thickness of the lens barrel 11 and the image display device 13, resulting in that the camera has a larger thickness. In this case, to design the camera to be thin, it is necessary to take measure that a print circuit board on which the imaging element 12 is attached is made of a thin FPC (flexible print circuit) board, however, there is a limit for designing the camera thinner, further, when the print circuit board is made of the FPC board, the imaging element 12 easily comes under the influence of noise of back light that is used in the image display device 13, which influences the image quality of the image which is photographed, that is a problem.